Castle for Rent

Eleven 164 East 64th Street

He sat hunched over, his forehead in one palm, elbow on the desk, peering down at a sheet of paper that crawled with arcane mathematical symbols. A high pile of crumpled sheets lay to his right. Stacks of books lay about the desk, interspersed with pencils and other writing implements, three or four different types of electronic calculator, several empty aluminum soda cans, and a cup and saucer holding the dregs of two-day-old coffee.

He threw down his pencil, a weary scowl on his face. “Dung of a thousand kine!”

There was not much enthusiasm in the curse. “Shit,” he added, with not much more.

He exhaled and peered into the coffee cup. He yecched silently, got up, and carried it into the kitchen, where he set about inducing Mr. Coffee to do its job. He spooned grounds into a fresh paper filter and slid me little drawer holding the filter into the machine, then poured cold water into the top of the device.

In the living room, the computer beeped a warning. He rushed directly to it and sat at the terminal.

He typed, NATURE OF EMERGENCY?

The disk drive rumbled. Then the screen displayed: DANGER.

RANGE AND DIRECTION? he queried.

NEARBY AND CLOSING FROM WEST.

GROUND OR AIRBORNE?

GROUND.

NATURE OR EMBODIMENT OF DANGER?

UNABLE TO DETERMINE.

“That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” he muttered. CAN PINPOINT PROXIMITY?

NEAR was all it answered.

“Damn program is full of bugs! Full of them!”

He halted waving his arms and considered his outburst. “I’m losing it. I’ll have to pull myself together.”

His eyes closed and his shoulders relaxed. He remained motionless for several minutes.

Presently the intercom buzzed. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and got up.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Carney?” It was the doorman.

“Yes.”

“Express package for you. Should I send the guy up?”

“Just take delivery. I’ll be down for it later.”

“He says you gotta sign for it.”

He considered the matter. The package would doubtless be the books he had ordered from a small specialty bookstore in San Francisco, whose owner had promised to get them out on the next plane yesterday afternoon. He was not yet acquainted enough with the minutiae of this world to judge the degree of risk.

But he really had to know, didn’t he?

“Have him come up.”

He sat down and closed his eyes again, preparing himself, until the door chimed.

The express man was young and looked innocuous enough.

“Hi! Mr. John Carney?”

“You got ’im.”

The express man shoved the package toward him. It was heavy and he had to use both hands to accept it. Heavy enough to be books.

“Just sign here, sir,” the man said, proffering a clipboard and pen.

“Just a minute.”

He turned, walked into the apartment, and laid the package on the dinette table. As he did, he heard the door close behind him. The computer began to beep frantically.

He whirled in time to see the delivery man drawing a large-caliber, silencer-tipped revolver. He dropped behind the dinette table just as the hit man fired, the bullet thunking into the package. He crawled behind an easy chair, then leaped out, diving toward the door of the darkened bedroom. The next two shots chipped wood from the doorframe above his head as he sailed through.

He crawled to the far end of the bed and remained on the floor.

Then, reaching into a place that was not exactly a place, which lay in a direction that was not quite up or down or to or fro, he summoned the thing that he found there, and it came forth. From what time or space or continuum the thing had come, he neither knew nor cared.

It stood above him, a mass of gleaming metal trimmed with strips of black synthetic material. Its arms ended in huge steel claws, and its head was a clear bubble housing whirling sensors and flashing probes. Thin, many-colored lines of light danced in crosshatch patterns on the walls of the dim bedroom, shifting and changing as the device took readings and measurements. In less than a second it was ready to move.

It clanked around the bed and rolled through the doorway into the hall.

There came a yelp, then another muffled gunshot and the spang of a bullet ricocheting off metal.

“DESTROY,” the mechanical thing stated, raising its arms. The claws swung to one side and dangerous-looking rods protruded from the cavities within the arms.

“No!” he shouted from the bedroom.

“I’m leaving!” the express man shouted.

There came the sounds of hasty retreat. Then the front door slammed.

“NOT DESTROY?” was the query with a slight note of disappointment.

“No. Scan premises for enemy.”

“SECTOR CLEAR.”

He came out from the bedroom. The machine was already fading.

“WILL NOT BE REDEPLOYED?” the thing asked.

“Return to post,” he ordered, which it was doing, anyway.

It was gone in the next instant.

He locked the door, slid the dead bolt, and affixed the chain. He retrieved the package. The books he had ordered were in it, one with a deformed slug inside that had bored clear through to page 457, which began a chapter titled “Incantations Useful in Interdimensional Quantum Transformations.”

He went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of fresh-brewed coffee.